The Best Credit Cards for Earning Avios in Australia

Avios are a very useful currency to have, for multiple reasons. It isn’t quite as easy to earn Avios in Australia than it is to earn, say, Qantas or Velocity points. But there are ways to do this, including with several Australian credit cards.

Avios is the common points currency of six frequent flyer programs, including four Oneworld alliance members:

• Qatar Airways Privilege Club
• British Airways Executive Club
• Iberia Plus
• Finnair Plus
• Aer Lingus AerClub
• Vueling Club

Finnair Plus started using Avios most recently in May 2024.

Once you have Avios with one of the above airline programs, you can then transfer them to your own account with another program that uses Avios. For example, you can instantly transfer Avios from Qatar Airways Privilege Club to British Airways Executive Club at a 1:1 conversion rate. This makes them very flexible, opening up more ways for you to use your Avios.

Why Avios?

Most of the airlines that use Avios are in the Oneworld alliance. You can already access reward seats on Oneworld airlines using Qantas Frequent Flyer points… so why would you want to collect Avios?

Well, there are multiple good reasons to earn Avios, even if you live in Australia…

Cheaper redemptions

Many Oneworld airline redemptions cost fewer Avios compared to Qantas points. For example, you’d pay 6,000 Avios in Economy or 12,500 Avios in Business to fly Qantas from Sydney to Hobart. By comparison, Qantas Frequent Flyer charges 12,000 points in Economy or 27,600 points for Business on the same route.

Or, when redeeming Qatar Airways Avios to fly Virgin Australia from Perth to Melbourne in Business Class, you’d pay 22,000 Avios. Velocity Frequent Flyer charges 35,500 points for the same flight.

However, one downside when using Avios is that most redemptions are priced as point-to-point flights. So, if you have a connecting itinerary with multiple flights, you’ll be charged the sum of the Avios required for every individual sector.

Access to more reward seats on British Airways and Qatar Airways

On every flight, British Airways reserves a certain number of reward seats in Economy, Premium Economy and Business Class for its own Executive Club members. This means, with Avios, you’ll have access to more inventory on British Airways flights than you would using, say, Qantas points.

With Avios, you’ll also be able to book Qatar Airways Business and First Class reward seats up to 355 days in advance. This means you get first dibs, before Velocity members and well before Qantas Frequent Flyer members get access. (Qantas frequent flyers have to wait until three days before departure – by which time, most seats are already long gone.)

You can also use Qatar Avios to access Flexi awards on Qatar Airways flights, which have more availability than regular award seats.

Plus, when using Avios to fly Qatar Airways from (for example) Melbourne to London, you’d pay just 90,000 Avios. That’s instead of 139,000 Velocity points or 159,000 Qantas points. The carrier charges are also a bit lower when using Avios.

Access reward seats on more non-Oneworld airlines

Since you can transfer Avios between your accounts with Qatar Airways, British Airways and Iberia, you can also access reward seats on all of these airlines’ partners. In addition to Oneworld airlines, British Airways Avios can be used to fly on Aer Lingus, and you can use Iberia Plus Avios on Avianca.

Qatar Airways also has a unique list of non-Oneworld partner airlines, including:

• JetBlue
• Virgin Australia
• Bangkok Airways
• RwandAir
• Oman Air (soon to join Oneworld)
• LATAM Airlines
• Middle East Airlines (MEA)

Upgrade on Qatar & British Airways flights

Oneworld has been hinting for years that alliance-wide upgrades are coming soon, but as yet this hasn’t happened. So, there’s currently no way to redeem Qantas points to upgrade on Qatar Airways or British Airways. But if you have Avios, you can redeem those towards an upgrade on either airline.

Earning Avios in Australia

There are a few ways to earn Avios in Australia. An obvious method is to credit flights on Qantas or Oneworld airlines to a frequent flyer program that uses Avios. But this isn’t the only way.

If you have PayRewards points, you can transfer these to Qatar Airways Privilege Club. You can also transfer points to an airline program that uses Avios from many hotel loyalty programs, including Marriott Bonvoy.

Another possibility is to simply buy Avios. The best value way to buy Avios is with a subscription from British Airways Executive Club.

You can also earn Avios with several Australian credit cards. If you spend a lot on your credit cards (or are able to take advantage of some good sign-up bonuses), you could earn a lot of Avios this way for a relatively low marginal cost!

How to earn Avios with Australian credit cards

Qatar Airways Privilege Club is the only frequent flyer program using Avios that also partners directly with Australian banks.

You can transfer points from the following Australian credit card reward programs into Qatar Privilege Club:

Of course, once the Avios hit your Privilege Club account, you could choose to transfer them into your British Airways account.

The best Australian credit cards for earning Avios in 2024

So, which are the best Avios-earning personal credit cards in Australia? We’ve put together a list of the top ones…

Note: If you’re viewing this article on a smartphone, the table below may look better if you rotate your device horizontally.

Card	Loyalty Program	Fee	Avios earned per $1	More information
Amex Platinum	Amex Membership Rewards (Premium Ascent)	$1,450/year	1.125
Amex Explorer	Amex Membership Rewards (Gateway)	$395/year	1
Amex Essential Rewards	Amex Membership Rewards (Gateway)	$9/month	0.5
Amex Platinum Edge	Amex Membership Rewards	$195/year	0.5
Citi Prestige	Citi Rewards	$700/year	0.33
CommBank Ultimate Awards	CommBank Awards	$35/month	0.29 (up to $10,000/month)

The CommBank Smart Awards and CommBank Awards cards also earn the equivalent of 0.29 Avios per $1 spent on everyday purchases. But this is only on the first $5,000 or $2,000 spent each month, respectively.

From time to time, you can even get bonus Avios when transferring points from a credit card program. For example, during May 2024, Citi Prestige cardholders could get 30% bonus Avios on transfers.

Many cards also have bonus point categories

Many of the Avios credit cards listed above also offer bonus points when you spend in certain categories. These include:

• 5x points on dining, 3x points on streaming subscriptions and 2x points with major retailers on the Amex Essential Rewards card (up to 10,000 bonus points per month)
• Triple points for supermarket and petrol station purchases on the Amex Platinum Edge card
• Triple points with restaurants, hotels & airlines and double points with supermarkets & petrol stations on the Citi Prestige card
• Triple points on overseas spend and double points on supermarkets, petrol, dining and utilities with CommBank Ultimate Awards (this credit card has no international transaction fees)

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.